(1) After reading some write-ups and comments in a forum and pondering over them for quite sometime, I've decided to cut down on investment in REITs. Main reason is the practice of the manager of REIT being rewarded for any purchase/sale of property, on top of being continually remunerated as a % of value of assets in the REIT. This could encourage some sort of churning, couldn't it? Of course in practice, a manager has to justify the purchase/sale. Nevertheless, where previously I thought of investing chiefly in REIT, now I am going to minimise the investment. I thought of arbitrarily taking the debt/asset ratio of 30% as a criteria for me to invest or not but later changed my mind because it is a tad low. So later I upped it to 35%. REIT with ratio lower than 35% has some room to raise fund via debt, rather than from rights or private placement which almost certainly lower the share price in the near future. This matters to me because I do not forsee having sufficient fund to buy more to lower the average purchase price should there be rights issue.

(2) As a result of temporarily adopting the debt/asset ratio of 30% criteria, I have disposed of Starhill Global REIT. I now regret since its ratio is below 35% and has been giving me good dividend yield :( Oh well.

(3) Among the 5 REITs in my portfolio, the one I'm eyeing to dispose of is Suntec REIT since its debt/asset ratio is above 35%. However, I would sell it only after its share price rises above my purchase price. Meanwhile, I'll just collect dividends from it.

(4) I sold SPDR STI ETF because it gave me profit within a month of purchase! Although it was only a small profit, I sold it because I was suspicious of the share market's exhuberance at that time. True enough, it fell significantly after end of October. I would have gotten back in if not because of lack of money (as I'm trying to buff up further my emergency fund).

(5) I've added SIA Engineering and Singpost as part of my continuing effort at diversification (especially since I'm cutting down on REITs).

I was studying in Singapore, doing O Levels when I was 17 years old. I was staying at a hostel, with 2 public telephones. Yes, this was the pre-mobile phone days. Half of the time these phones were used by the residents, no doubt including those who missed home.

I was staying in a room at the top of the building on the 4th floor. I had a roommate, whom thankfully I got along well with. There was no lift or escalator and so that meant I had to use 4 flights of stairs to get to the 1st floor.

I was a big fan of Whitney Houston and so when there was a chance to win a pair of tickets to her concert, I decided to go for it. It was quite simple but required lots of patience and attention: call the radio station when they played a snippet of her song (they made it obvious that it was time to call).

I tried many times (my roommate recalled my sheer determination), listening to my Walkman, rushing down with my phonecard and ran along (and sometimes jumped over a few steps!) the stairs to the phones. Sometimes I couldn't even use the phone because there were some people using them (and at times, there was queue!) and sometimes the call never got through (i.e. someone else got through to the radio station first).

However, one night, things went right: I ran the moment I heard the cue. Nobody was using the phone. I rang and kept using the redial button whenever I heard an engaged tone. Suddenly I was through! Woohoo!

I invited my sister, who was in Malaysia, to come down and attend the concert with me. It was held at the Kallang Indoor Stadium. At first, it felt a little stuffy there (which later on I learned that the aircond was switched off so as not to adversely affect Whitney's voice) but later on I didn't feel it as I was enjoying the performance. It wasn't the kind of concert where people stood up and danced away. People generally sat down, sang along and grinned a lot :)

It was a memorable adventure for me. RIP Whitney and thanks for the memory and songs throughout the decades.

Right when I was on the verge from fully recovering from the previous illness, I had another! This time, it was truly nightmarish. At one point, I told Ban that I wished I could "load game" i.e. to 'restore' the previous 'session' so that I didn't experience this new illness.

I started having stomach discomfort, somethig akin to gastric or gas in the digestive track, right after I ate one of the apples I bought recently. Ate some bread later before going out for dinner. I also had something new during dinner: clams and fish maw in bak kut teh (on top of the usual pork and mushroom) and a dish of stir-fry sliced fish. After dinner, stomach still felt a little funny and so I took domperidone. Burped quite loudly and felt a little better.

It was shortly before going out for supper that I noticed the stomach cramp, specifically cramp around the intestinal area. Decided to take buscopan and went for supper. First time to Snowflake at Uptown. I had their black glutinous rice + red bean soup, again something new for me. Meanwhile, the cramp worsen to such that I walked a little hunched because it was more painful to stand fully upright. The pain had continually pulsated all this time.

Took domperidone and buscopan again right before sleep but in vain. It was just too painful to sleep, especially if flat on the bed. I had to bend legs to ease the pain a little. Ban drove me to a 24-hr clinic (it was past 1.30am already), coincidentally in Uptown itself. Had to wait about 25 mins for the doctor to be back from supper.

The doctor asked plenty of questions, which was good. He managed to pinpoint the pain to the appendix area. However, since I have no other symptoms of appendicitis (notably fever) aside from the cramp, he didn't think it was appendicitis. I did alert him of wanting to vomit, which occurred just about an hour before I met him. Gave me a jab, some medication and a referral letter for me to bring to hospital for tests should the pain persist.

Back in bed, I was struggling to sleep, not entirely due to the cramp, which has much subsided due to the jab, but because of restless legs! It was very frustrating and frightening. I was so so so tired but the moment I started relaxing, the restlessness began. I now suspect that maybe it was the side effect of the anti-nausea medicine.

Since I couldn't sleep and the cramp still persists, I decided to go to this hospital. Ban drove me there. I was hoping that I didn't need to be put on drip.

There was few people there past 4.30am. Had to register but the waiting time to see doctor wasn't long. He too agreed with the GP doctor that it may look like appendicitis but I didn't have fever and other symptoms other than cramp. So he took some blood and urine to perform tests to check for appendicitis. Ban and I didn't know that there's blood test for this illness.

I was given a bed in the recovery area to lie down. Somehow, I started humming in my head the song "Morning Has Broken" and that at least helped me to rest a little despite the restless legs. The results supposed to take an hour but thankfully it took only 30 mins and showed negative for appendicitis. Phew!

The hospital doctor told me to continue the medication prescribed by the GP and he also added a muscle relaxation medicine, which contains orphenadrine citrate and paracetamol, to help with my restless leg. He advised me to monitor and should the pain persist or worsen, I should go back to the hospital for ultrasound scan. He gave me an open appointment for that.

By the time I was in bed, it was past 6am. Overall, I managed to sleep better but woke up every few hours. I prayed very hard for us to sleep well and also that I would get well, without being diagnosed as having appendicitis.

Thank goodness the cramp was almost gone when I finally woke up for lunch. I still feel bloated and don't have good appetite but I manage to pass motion normally and have been expelling gas hehe. I really hope I'll recover soon.

It's been about one-and-a-half years since I last needed to use the steroidal nasal spray Flixonase. However, circumstances have forced me to use it again. Here's how it happened:

Early this week, I could feel I was having post-nasal drip and that was confirmed that night when I couldn't really sleep due to cough and the need to regularly expunge phlegm that was accumulated in my mouth. So as usual, I tried to take decongestion/antihistamine (Clarinase/Fedac/Became) and perform sinus rinse. Later, on the advice of a pharmacist, I also took Mucosolvan to help to think the mucus and Rhinathiol to suppress the cough at night so that I can sleep better.

The result? Well, the good news is that the cough has subsided and I could sleep better. The bad news is that the rhinitis has worsen to the point that decongestion/antihistamine couldn't relieve the resultant headace. After taking paracetamol over a few days to temporarily relieve the headache, I decided I had to now get back on Flixonase for a while. Not unusual as doctors in Singapore had warned me before that I may need to use it from time to time.

On Saturday, my cough has gotten worse i.e. became uncontrollable. I also had lesser sleep the night before. Hence, I consulted a doctor. He is...patronising :) Lecturing me left and right. Anyway, his prescription of cetrizine and Allersin is similar to decongestion/antihistamine I've been taking while his Mucoclear is the same as Mucosolvan. The cough syrup, Duro-Tuss, may be different from that I took. Dextromethorphan is clearly the only new addition, which is supposedly to help with the cough.

Now the phlegm accumulation is not much a problem but cough has worsen and drier. I also had slight fever last night :(

About two and half months after the UPSR result, out of the blue I was asked to tutor my former student. I was quite surprised because there wasn't any discussion about it for sometime. Also, I am a little concerned about him having too much tuition, especially since he is already attending a Math tuition class.

Anyway, I'll be starting the tuition on the first Tuesday of February. I will need to find out then whether, similar to last year, there are already workbooks available for me to use or I need to source out one myself. I would need to see the textbook as well.

As for Ironclaw, it starts later today! I'm a little nervous since it's new to me and I'm meeting new people too. There are now 6 players! I'm looking forward to this and hope that it'll turn out well.